All Gone

It's all dead now.

Winter's arrived, and the trees outside my window are stripped of every last leaf. All that's left are shivering twigs and scrawny patches of moss. It makes me so sad.

Today has been full of nothing but gloom. Words like gloom, desolate, and dreary were crafted just for days such as these. It's foggy and misty and cold, and I am utterly confounded by those who say days like these are beautiful.

Yesterday I went to see a counselor about my seasonal affective disorder. He gave me a depression test. You could say that I passed with flying colors (my life has been empty of both passing and colors these days, so perhaps I should look on the bright side). I'm looking into some solutions: light therapy, natural remedies, medication as a last resort.

So a day like this after a day like that is a little more than I can take. Four alarms and a phone call from my mom didn't get me out of bed this morning. I did go to class, though, even though I only woke up ten minutes before it started. Small victories.

I don't feel "in the sunshine" anymore. Colors seem duller. I hate being in my room, where it used to bring comfort and contentment. Music seems empty. I feel empty. Laughter comes less often these days. It's easy to forget what being fully alive feels like.

But every once in a while two notes of a song will come together in a way that makes me feel a spark of life again. The other day I read a page of Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird that stirred my soul. Sometimes when Ben and Leslie are acting like they're married, I laugh hard enough to make my heart remember joy.

My biggest fear is that those moments will stop existing come January. Every happy moment is slightly shadowed by the fear that it will be the last for a long while.

I'm like the trees. I'm still here, and I still look like myself. But all my happy leaves--the things that define me and make me myself--have shed. I'm bracing for the cold weather ahead, not sure that I'm really ready to face it.

It's not easy, at all, to do--to look at the trees and know that spring always comes again. But I'm trying to remember that the day will come when I look out my window and see little green buds on twigs that are now bare. And soon after that the view from my window will be a sea of green alive-ness.

Then the leaves will make the tree itself again, and joy will make me myself again. Don't let me forget.